1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a manufacturing method of a piezoelectric element and a liquid ejecting head.
2. Related Art
A liquid ejecting head including piezoelectric elements is known as, for example, a liquid ejecting apparatus such as an ink jet printer that ejects a liquid such as ink. Such liquid ejecting heads are capable of changing the pressure within a pressure chamber formed below a piezoelectric element by causing the piezoelectric element to displace using a driving signal or the like, which makes it possible to eject a liquid such as ink, which has been supplied to the pressure chamber, through a nozzle hole.
Some such liquid ejecting heads are structured so that a piezoelectric layer is covered by an upper electrode, in order to protect the piezoelectric layer of the piezoelectric element, which is susceptible to external factors such as humidity and so on (see JP-A-2005-88441). Such a piezoelectric element includes an active region in which the piezoelectric layer is sandwiched between a lower electrode and the upper electrode, and the active region typically has a shape that extends in a specific direction when viewed from above. In this type of piezoelectric element, there are cases where there is too much displacement in the piezoelectric element at the ends of the active region in the lengthwise direction. As a result, there is the possibility that cracks will appear in the piezoelectric layer of the piezoelectric element, which leads to a drop in the reliability of the piezoelectric element.
Accordingly, what is needed is a piezoelectric element manufacturing method with which, a highly-reliable piezoelectric element capable of suppressing the occurrence of cracks can be manufactured with precision and ease.